Pregnancy | My Labour Story – Before We Headed To Hospital

Way back when I started my blog, I wrote a post about how my birth plan hadn’t exactly gone to ‘plan’, but I didn’t completely write out what had happened either. I was, quite possibly, very bitter about my whole experience, but mostly really upset that things ended the way they did, and I wasn’t really open to writing it all down.

Two days overdue and I had literally had enough of maternity leave already. I was bored. There’s only so much crap TV you can watch and only so much cleaning you can do before you’d rather just be getting on with something – like giving birth. Our gravel drive had needed raking for some time, the grass needed cutting and our front path needed weeding – so off I went. I was on all fours picking out weeds, raking stones and strimming the edges of the grass until it was all done. I’d stopped to have a wee in between doing all of this and found that I’d lost my mucus plug – woohoo (sorry if TMI)! Surely things were about to get started pretty soon?

I texted Jamie to let him know and I got a “well done”. It wasn’t until I’d finished my chores and actually sat down that I realised I had, quite possibly, put my back out. My lower back was absolutely killing me and I genuinely though I must’ve overdone it. I gave myself a mental tap on the hand for being so silly and doing all of that, but I also gave myself a pat on the back for a job well done while I was so pregnant!

Later that evening, I met a friend for some tea at Prezzo and couldn’t get comfortable. I’d told her about what I’d be doing all day and how much my back was hurting, and.. just how uncomfortable could these chairs be for goodness sake? It still didn’t click that I might be in the early stages of labour, I genuinely thought I’d just overdone it. We said our goodbyes and then Jamie and I went round to see some friends and at about 11pm, I said I really needed to go home and lay down with some paracetamol.

I felt much more comfortable as soon as I got between the sheets, but something woke me up at 2.30am. Oh my god, my period was here (No Jade, you don’t have periods right now). Oh my GOD, I’ve wet myself! (No Jade, you haven’t). OH MY GOD, MY WATERS HAVE BROKEN. (Yes Jade, now get out of bed). I managed to trickle all the way to our family bathroom to clean myself up a bit. I calmly walked back towards the bedroom and stood, knickers on the end of my finger, calling Jamie to wake up. As soon as I told him he started rushing around, pulling things about, appearing quite panicky. I asked him what he was doing, to which he replied, “well, we’ve got to get ready and go”. Go where…? “To the hospital”. Well I don’t know about you, but I’m getting back into bed.

I knew they wouldn’t do anything, and would probably send me home, until I was having regular contractions. I had to come downstairs in the end because I was so uncomfortable and wanted to let Jamie get as much sleep as possible, considering there’d been a car fire which had woken us up the night before. I had started having contractions by the time Jamie came downstairs but they were so irregular that they were completely impossible to time. They were 10 minutes apart.. then 2 minutes.. then 7 minutes!

We traipsed up to the hospital at 8am that morning to eventually, after a lot of debate, have confirmation that my waters had indeed gone. I remember a couple of midwives getting their heads right down there, with a big, round, red torch, having a discussion about what exactly it was they were seeing. They also told me I hadn’t even started dilating yet, and to come back tomorrow morning if there’d been no progress.

When we got home I spent most of my time curled over a bouncy ball, but I was coping with the pain quite well I thought. I had my 40+ week appointment with my actual midwife later that day around 4pm, whom I rang to confirm whether I’d still need to attend and was told absolutely yes. She had no idea why we were even there, but she agreed to examine me and give me a little stretch and sweep (OUCH). I was 3cm dilated, and I was over the moon. Three whole centimetres and I wasn’t screaming out for relief or anything yet… until it got to about 7pm..